The effect of media on addiction

61 scenes from films that protayed drugs,alcohol,nicotine, gambling and sex. He found that most of these films protayed the postive effects of addictive behaviour, for example contrasting the fun and enjoyment of taking drugs with the mandane nature of everyday life.

GUNAKESERA

looked at 87 of the most popular film of the past twenty years, use of cannabis featured in 8% tobacco 68% and drunken behaviour 32%. Again he concluded that the protrayal seemed to be postive and did not focus on the negative effects of addictive behaviour.

Boyd

found many films do protray the negative effects of addiction such as theft, prostitution being used to pay for the addictive behaviour.

Sargent and hanewinkel

Looked at the effects of flim portrayal of smoking on over 4,000 adolosecents. They question them at the start of the study and then again at the end a year later.Those who had taken up smoking often cited the influence of smoking in films as a contributory factor.

DISTEFAN

Found the likeabilty of the character also effect the decision to start smoking.

Dalton

The more adolescents are exposed to films with smoking the more likley they are to start.

Although these studies consider the actual protayal only a few look at the extent of the influence they have on addictive behaviour.